Strategic Policy Advice and Policy Coordination in Serbia Marko Paunovic October 1 st 2005

Organization of the Ministries Legal Framework Law on Ministries - Parliament Decree on Principles of Organization and of the Work Places – The Government Decision on Organization of Work Places – The Government Decree on principles…

Organization of the Ministries Office of the Minister Maximum number of employees defined by the Government Decree Secretariat Sectors/departments/sections/groups Assistant and Deputy Ministers

Ministry Capacities Lack of coordination, cooperation and exchange of information within the ministry Sectors usually make their own working and operational plans Ministries are often complaining about the lack of strategic planning unit at the center of government Minister in Serbia can not rely to his employees in order to develop and implement optimal policy

Advice to the Cabinet General Secretariat not doing policy advising Secretariat for Legislation only doing legal review EU Integration Office Advisory bodies not very effective Council for EU Integration

Center of Government New regulations have separated political offices from General Secretariat The Advisory capacity has been displaced to these offices

General Secretariat and Secretariat for Legislation No capacity to do strategic advising Preparation of acts for the governments decision whose purpose is supervision, directing and harmonizing of the activities of the ministries Secretariat for Legislation is only doing Legal Review Interesting: this secretariat is in charge for drafting laws related to: functioning of government; public administration system; organization and tasks of ministries, labor relations in government institutions

PM Office Besides Chief of staff, the Office is comprised of 5-7 advisers Mainly involved in the process of defining and coordinating policies related to the issues of the highest political importance, Advisors to the PM do not take part in the regular, daily work of the government, nor they take part in the preparation of the Government session Regarding their party affiliation, some of the advisors are nonpartisan, and some advisor are high ranking officials of the prime minister’s party. Another possibility that the Law on Government gives to the PM is to create Council for Economic Development and Council for State Administration and Public Services, with up to 5 members.

DPM Office DPM is in charge for coordination of economic policies and EU integration process Besides the Chief of Staff and her Deputy, the Office is comprised of 4 advisers and several assistants 3 of the advisors are nonpartisan, and 1 advisor is a member of the DPM’s party Three other institutions are also directly subordinated to the DPM: Serbian Office for European Integration Serbian Investment and Export Promotion Agency Poverty Reduction Strategy Implementation Focal Point

EU Integration Office New Institution – set up when this Government came to the office This Office will in the future have a very important role in strategic policy making. Even now, the Office was mostly seen by other institutions as a relatively professional team, whose opinion has to be considered. Also, during the preparation of new regulations, the Ministries have to ask this Office for an opinion related to harmonization with the acquis Most of the employees are young, with substantial international experience

PRSP IFP The PRS is a document that provides an analysis of poverty in Serbia, and the main strategic guidelines for social development The role of this team is to oversee and coordinate the implementation of the Strategy, and to monitor and report on the poverty rates in Serbia

International Organizations and conditionality IMF role of the IMF in strategic decision making and advising can not be underestimated World Bank mostly focused to advisory and technical assistance to the government move towards direct budget support EU

Think Tanks Relatively important role of the private institutions University and government think tanks mostly irrelevant Advocacy groups Chamber of Commerce Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities

Conclusion One of the major challenges will be to improve the intellectual and expert capacities in order to ensure that the decisions are made based on the informed discussions for the people who know what the alternative are, ant what are the effect of those alternatives. That capacity does not exist in the state administration of Serbia as of this moment, at least not as institutionalized support system for the decision makers an the Government Decisions are frequently not based on proper discussion, and without taking all the relevant alternatives in consideration International Institutions were extremely useful